The Colourfield

 Exhibition Preview Friday 12th April 2019 5.30pm to 9pm

Daniel Porter & Kirsty Garcia

A painting is simply a screen between the producer and the spectator where both can look at the thought processes residing on the screen from different angles and points in time. It enables me to look at the residue of my thinking.
—Katharina Grosse 

Kirsty Garcia rose to prominence with her in situ paintings, in which explosive colour is painted directly onto architectural interiors.

The artist embraces the events and incidents that arise as she works, opening up surfaces and spaces to the countless perceptual possibilities of the medium. Approaching painting as an experience in immersive subjectivity, she uses traditional painting techniques to create gestural and propulsive marks onto the surface of both walls and canvas.

Born in Jersey, Kirsty began painting at an early age and has always been attuned to the ways that colour and light merged with thought itself. In her earlier works she juxtaposed colors of various densities and temperatures, repeating vertical, transparent brushstrokes. These led to related works painted directly onto the wall, where she has lined hallways in sublime fields of artificial colour.

 For this exhibition Kirsty has chosen to tackle the end wall of the main gallery space for a one off installation but other examples of her smaller works are available to purchase.

 Daniel Porter’s paintings explore the very nature of painting both as cultured language and sheer expression and he disregards the classical polarities of abstraction and representation, past and present, canvas and frame. Assertive compressed gestures, sweeping complex textures, a lush palette, and the dynamic interchange of light and dark are all traits of his distinctive signature. With their maximalist gestures and saturated colors, his more intimately scaled paintings appear jewel-like, while larger works are opulent and theatrical. Painted onto canvas and glass they operate as both objects, images and mirrors and embrace joyous spontaneity and directness in equal measure.

 His studio practice is a processes of reflection and capitulation and it may take a year for Daniel to prepare to execute a single brushstroke. The seemingly casual, urgent quality of his paintings belies the fact that most of them have been worked on for two or three years. More than ever they convey the relationship between hand, eye, and memory that drives their process, visual structure, and emotional temperature.

 For this exhibition Daniel’s works are displayed in the main gallery space and the interplay between Daniel and Kirsty’s works will produce a truly dynamic exhibition the likes of which has never have been seen before in Jersey.

 Chris Clifford BA (Hons) MA – Gallery Director